12 String Fell into My Lap!

A friend, J, needed to ship his guitar here and needed someone to receive it so I was elected. It is a Martin acoustic 12-string and it just happened to show up as I was putting the finishing touches to a couple of songs for The ICW Blues. He wanted me to unpack it and and try it out for him to make sure it did not suffer any shipping damage, so what better way to test it than to record a few tracks with it? So now it is immortalized on The ICW Blues CD.

He bought the guitar used a few weeks ago. It is in excellent shape and looks new, but like so many new guitars even from the Martins of the world, it needs to have the slots in the nut cut deeper. The action is too high on the first few frets which not only makes it hard to play, but ruins the intonation when you press the string down. In effect you are bending the string too far when you fret the string which makes it sound too sharp. A good test to determine if the nut slot is too high is to fret each string between the second and third fret and then see how much clearance there is between the string and the first fret. The string should just barely clear the first fret - a couple of thousandths maybe? Any more than that and you are fighting it.

I would probably be tempted to pay a pro to file the nut in this case. First it's a Martin which equals pretty expensive, and second, it's a 12-string which makes it hard to see what you are doing. I don't mind tinkering on a knockabout guitar, but this one is not! Scooter at Granville Guitars is a local tech who could be trusted with this job.

Anyway, you will be able to hear the 12- string on The ICW Blues some day soon.

Happy Halloweenie!

Lots of Work........

Recording and mixing an album is a lot of work! This is probably not news, but it keeps coming home as I constantly am tweaking the mix, improving the parts, and so on. I think I will simplify the title of the forthcoming sailing oriented CD to just The ICW Blues.

Wednesday evening is normally a Blue Island Beer Club adventure. This week, the World Series pre-empted the music at our local venue so we took the night off. I will be glad when the elections are over too. Hopefully normal life will resume. I am not a baseball fan per se but it would have been nice if our local team had won. The team had been pushing for a new stadium but as I watched the wet and cold game in Philadelphia, I kept thinking that if they were in St. Pete, the sun would have been shining, they would have been in a covered stadium with convenient ample parking, and the Rays would have probably won.

I am optimistic that the stock market and the economy in general has bottomed out and I have made a few moves with that in mind. Trying not to end up as a Walmart greeter.

Cheers!

ICW Blues progressing....

All of the tracks for The ICW Blues, And Other Sailors' Laments have been written and nine of them have been recorded. Some fine tuning of the recordings is under way and there is a little progress each day. I hope to have the remaining two songs recorded in the next week or two.

The Song ICW Blues was very popular with cruisers when I played it live in ports along the East Coast and in the Bahamas. Any boaters who have traveled the ICW immediately connect with the song.......

I am excited about the song Eddie's Edgewater. It was written in George Town Bahamas for the Bahamian Music Festival earlier this year, but it has not been recorded until now. Lots of heavy Bahamian rhythms on this one!

Katiki Jammin'

I played at the Katiki jam last night with Tim, Bill and Pug. I sang Texas Flood, Tore Down and Killin' Floor. Bill did LaGrange, Can't Hold Out, and I Wanna Make Love to You. Tim did his Robert Johnson Medley and Mercury Blues. Pug is just about the world's best drummer......and what a difference it makes to play with someone like that holding it together! Pug is a hired gun and works about 6 nights a week with various bands. He has a gold record hanging on his wall.

http://www.myspace.com/pugbaker

Pete Dorian played at the jam and sounded good. He played a G&L Tribute Tele with P90 style pickups which sounded good through his Mesa amp.

I did not do any of my blues originals......I really need to write some fresh ones.

The ICW Blues is coming soon!

For all you sailors who love music, the new version of the ICW Blues is finished and soon to be released on my latest CD. Not too surprisingly the name of the CD is The ICW Blues.....and Other Sailors' Laments. Production is well along and I expect it to be released in mid-November.

Stay tuned!